Long Passes
by 8560
Summary: Sequel to Short Passes-follow the players through their college years. Mostly HiruMamo, but SenaSuzuna and others may pop up.
1. Tower

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

Author's note: To all the new readers, welcome! To all those continuing from Short Passes, welcome back! (if you haven't read that yet, I would suggest it as the two series are related and may reference each other).

**Long Pass: Tower**

_A little rendezvous._

In fairy tales, there was a princess, a hero and a tower.

Well, Hiruma Yoichi had the tower.

And it was a pretty fucking awesome tower.

"I'm sorry," said Mamori, running up. The usual neat and tidy manager had her hair tangled by the wind, bag hanging off her shoulder half-zipped, and was out of breath. "I got here as fast as I could-what is that?"

He grinned at her. "Our new scouting vehicle."

After getting into Saikyodai, Hiruma had...acquired a Jeep through his usual channels and paid Musashi to modify it. The vehicle now had a tower in the truck bed, with metal frame that stood almost two stories in the air. The platform at the top even had a place to slot in a telescope or a rifle for additional functionality.

Mamori stared at it, and then at him. "Yoichi," she said slowly, "you said this was urgent. Did you just call me out of class on my _first day _just to see this?"

He laughed. "Kekekeke! The first day doesn't matter, everyone knows that. They just go over stupid shit like the syllabus."

"...you didn't even go to any of your classes today, did you?"

"Of course not." He had more important things to do, like updating his player files for the college teams and moving all his weapon caches from Deimon to Saikyodai.

Mamori sighed and gave up. "Well, I admit that it is pretty impressive-I would have thought that you would have gotten a tank again though."

"A Jeep is more mobile. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to show you."

"It's not? Then what-hey!"

Hiruma had slung his rifle back over his shoulder and pushed her toward the back of the Jeep. After a few token protests, it was clear what he wanted and Mamori started climbing up the ladder.

"Oh wow," she breathed as he joined her on the top of the tower.

At Deimon High, the American Football team had to be built from scratch, with Hiruma scrounging up players, supplies and a practice field through blackmail, theft and bribery. Saikyodai, by virtue of being larger and with pre-existing team, was a different story. Certain things he still had to get through his Threat Book, but the evening sun glinted gold off of the goal posts at either end of their own football field, the red-gold light made the green of the astroturf and white of the yard lines particularly rich. Cheeks bright with excitement, Mamori darted around the top of the tower, pointing our various features on the field, all her annoyance forgotten.

When she started pointing out the same things a second time, she found herself embraced from the back as a pair of bony arms wrapped around her waist. She leaned her head back against Hiruma's chest as he grinned down at her. She smiled back. "Thank you, Yoichi."

"Kekeke! You're welcome."

They stood there a second, silent in wonder. This wasn't a fucking fairy tale, but…

He looked across the university campus and down at the field, _his _field, _their _field, play after play running through his head, ideas and plans and schemes rushing through his head. And he was holding _her, _Anezaki Mamori, the gamble he'd never thought he'd win, in his arms with the wind sending her auburn hair against his cheek and wafting the smell of her, sunshine and strawberries, to his nose…

The grin split his face from ear to ear-wide, evil and incredibly happy.

This wasn't a fucking fairy tale, Hiruma wasn't a fucking hero, but he had the tower and the princess and this was his fucking kingdom.

This year was going to be great.


	2. Temper

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

**Long Pass: Temper**

_Even angels lose it sometimes._

Anezaki Mamori had always been fairly popular. It wasn't uncommon in her high school days to get a few love letters a week, or a couple declarations a month. It only seemed to get worse when she started college. Hiruma had offered to "deal" with her admirers himself, but she turned him down—his way of dealing would involve copious amounts of unnecessary gunpowder and explosives. Usually Mamori could deter the would-be suitors with a few words and a gentle but firm letdown.

All except one. Generally Mamori thought that persistence was a good thing, but not in this case. The first refusal didn't work. The second didn't either. Neither did the third, the fourth nor the fifth. She'd caught his eye—and his heart, he professed, though she doubted that was the actual organ—that first day on campus when she was hanging posters for the American Football Club. He wasn't all that bad-looking, which really only made it worse. He thought that she was playing hard to get.

Even when she _told _him that she already had a boyfriend he wouldn't stop. He seemed to have her class schedule memorized and one day followed her to practice. She tried to ignore him as she booted up the computer in the clubhouse to start editing game videos for Hiruma but it was impossible to concentrate. Hiruma had managed to teach her how to use basic media editing software, but she still wasn't very good at computers and this guy nattering in her ear didn't help.

"…know you said you already had a boyfriend, but I never _see _him…"

_Because we are in different classes! _Mamori wanted to scream. _His major is completely different than mine! Besides, it's a big campus. _

"…deserve someone who will take care of you, keep you safe like your loveliness deserves…"

_I can take care of myself, thank you very much._

"…American Football Club? Such a rough sport. A lady like you shouldn't be involved in that! What you need is a hero to sweep you off your feet and take you away from all this…"

_That's it. _Mamori was a patient woman—she had to be, to deal with Hiruma—but enough was enough. Sending the laptop to sleep, she stood up and glared at the idiot. "A hero? You think I need a hero?"

"Of course!" he grinned at her, in what he no doubt imagined was a charming manner. "And I am—wait, where are you going?"

"Yoichi!" Mamori yelled, walking out onto the field. "Yoichi!"

The quarterback was practicing pass routes with the other players. He turned around at her shouting. "Fucking manager, what?"

"Put the ball down."

"What?" he stared at her.

"I said, put the ball down. You'll need both hands for this."

He looked at her incredulously. "What the hell? What the fuck are you on about now—"

Mamori marched right up to him and yanked his head down. For a fraction of a second, Hiruma froze, just as surprised as the rest of the field that pretty, demure, ladylike Anezaki Mamori was suddenly giving him a hot, hard, passionate kiss in the middle of practice. But that was only for a fraction of a second. Grinning against her mouth, he dropped the ball and used both hands to pull her closer.

When they parted, he was still grinning. "What the fuck was that?"

"Sorry." Her cheeks were pink. "I lost my temper."

"Kekekeke! If that was you losing your temper, feel free to lose it any fucking time." He looked over her shoulder at the would-be suitor, who was suffering from a case of Slack-jaw even worse than the rest of the field. "I told you that you should have let me use the C4 on him."

Mamori sighed. "If this doesn't work, I may let you." She turned around in his arms to face her admirer and cleared her throat. "As you can see, my boyfriend is right here. And I don't need a hero when I already have a villain. I mean to keep him, so thank you but no thank you."

The guy gaped at her. "Uh…yeah. I mean, ok. Err, I'll just…I'll just go and…I'll go." He fled.

"Kekekeke!" Hiruma laughed. "And people say that _I'm _cruel."

"Well, I did try to be nice." She sighed and he reluctantly released his hands from her waist. Mamori kissed him on the cheek and handed him back the ball. "You can go back to practice now. I'm almost done editing the videos, and will be out after."

The quarterback grinned after her as she returned to the clubhouse. _I love that woman. _He turned around to face the rest of the field, who were all still staring at him in shock. Although they wouldn't deny it if anyone asked, he and Mamori hadn't really broadcasted their relationship—she didn't see how it was really anyone's business, and he agreed. This was likely the first real confirmation of the rumors that the other players had. Banba looked shocked, Ikkyu looked jealous, Yamato looked amused, and Taka looked bored.

"What, you never seen a kiss before, you fucking bastards?" Hiruma yelled. He yanked out the bazooka. "Get back in position!"

Mamori smiled at the sound of the explosion outside.

* * *

No C4 was necessary after that. Mamori was slightly embarrassed about it later, but news of the kiss between the angel and the devil during afternoon practice spread like wildfire around the university and Mamori was blissfully free of unwanted attention. Which was perfectly fine with her. Heroes were nice but could be boring—villains never were and she had the best one.


	3. Comfort

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

Author's note: The bit on Hiruma's family is purely speculation-just my take on why he never mentions his mother at all, and why he doesn't seem to get along with his father either.

**Long Pass: Comfort**

_Now it's Hiruma's turn. See Short Pass: Sweet._

Hiruma Yoichi rarely got sick.

It was one of the things that that fucking Hah brother Toganou (among others) used to cite how Hiruma could not be human. His parents, when he was still living with them, did think it was a little odd (well, his father did, his mother thought it would have gotten in the way of her socializing). But, honestly, he didn't see what was so surprising about it. Keep warm, wash your hands, and stay away from people who were hacking, sneezing, and coughing all over the damn place. It wasn't fucking rocket science.

However, Hiruma _was _human and the rareness of him getting ill seemed to just amplify it when he actually _did _get ill. In middle school, he'd had to hole up in his latest hotel for a week, with barely enough energy to collect the room service meals from his door. He'd had to feed Kurita and Musashi some story about going undercover at other schools to get the dirt on their various American Football teams when he got back.

The next time it happened was in college. He felt it coming all week. But there was practices to run, plays to polish, teams to scout, and a million other things to do, so he popped a couple of OTC pills and kept trucking along. But then, on the third day, he was struggling to put on his shoes with eyes that watered and a head that pounded, and then things went black.

* * *

"Idiot."

Soft fingers brushed hair back from his head to place a blessedly cool compress on his forehead.

"_Idiot._ I never thought that I would say about you but..._idiot._"

Opening eyelids that creaked like coffins, Hiruma blearily made out the face of Anezaki Mamori sitting at his bedside. As always, her pretty features were a bright spot in the room, but she was frowning at him with a particularly unhappy expression.

"What?" he muttered.

"You are so colossally stupid that...I don't even have the words."

"What the hell happened?"

"You didn't come to campus for classes, which admittedly isn't all that unusual, but then you didn't show up for _practice _and I got worried. So I come to your place and what do I find? You, unconscious, on the floor, with a fever so high I'm surprised you didn't burn the carpet! I nearly had a heart attack!"

That explained her glaring. "Sorry." He tried to sit up but his arms had about the strength of wet noodles.

Her eyes softened and she helped him up, wedging a pillow at his back for extra support. "No, I'm sorry. I should have noticed that you weren't feeling well earlier-"

He laughed hoarsely, a bit repulsed by the feeling of mucus shifting in his throat. Typical Mamori. "Keke! I'm good at hiding things like that."

"Not from me," she said forlornly. Which was true. Usually she could see things about him that everyone else missed, but with the tournament coming up, she'd been running around like crazy the past week as well.

Looking at her face, Hiruma felt like a real ass. It was amazing-he could do all sorts of things with gleeful abandon to other people, and feel nothing other than evil amusement afterward, but would feel like a total shit when it came to her. After they had gotten together, he had probably apologized more to her than his entire life prior.

"You had other shit to do," he insisted. "Don't worry about it."

"That's not-" She sighed. "Yoichi, I'm supposed to worry about you. That's what girlfriends _do._" She looked at him with a funny sort of expression, sort of part exasperated, part worried and part sad. "You really aren't used to being the one that gets taken care of, are you?"

He automatically opened his mouth to argue but stopped. Actually, that was true. His mother had left after his father stopped winning games and lost the status of being a successful professional player. Disgusted by how little his father had fought to keep his marriage or his titles, Hiruma had started living on his own from a young age. Even after meeting Kurita and Musashi, both his friends continued to look to _him _for the lead. _He _was always the one with the plans and the schemes and the know-how to get what he wanted. It had never occurred to him to look to someone else for help.

Looking at his dumbfounded face, Mamori smiled. "Do you think you could eat something? I have soup warming in the kitchen."

* * *

An hour later, Mamori was watching carefully as he swallowed two more pills before taking his temperature again. She frowned at the readout. "Hmm. Still high. That's it, you are not leaving this bed for at least another day."

"Like hell," he said, although the medicine was hitting his system and making the room all fuzzy again. "There's-"

"There's nothing," she said firmly. "You only need to rest and get well. Our game isn't until next week but we need a _healthy_ quarterback for it. I have enough of your notes to organize practice for the next few days."

He grinned at her and gave up. "Ke. Pushy, aren't you?"

"Of course. Though I will need to get you some more supplies-the kitchen is a disgrace, it's so empty. What do you _eat? _No wonder you are so skinny..."

She went on another one of her earnest speeches about how terrible his diet was, and how people shouldn't subsist on bubble gum and coffee alone. Maybe it was the medicine that was making him loopy but as he watched her the thought surfaced that he hoped that Anezaki Mamori would be around to rail at him about his bad eating habits forever. God, she'd made him such a goddamn _sap..._though he couldn't bring himself to mind.

Mamori finally finished speaking. After kissing him on the cheek, she got up to go get the groceries, but his arm reached out on impulse and tugged at her sleeve. "Later."

"Hmm?"

"Go later," he repeated, and tugged again.

She blinked at him, but then smiled as she realized what he wanted. Immediately after she lay down next to him on the bed, he wrapped his arms around her waist and closed his eyes against her collarbone. The soothing beat of her heart thudded under his ear, and reassuring smell of her soap rose up around him. Every single muscle gradually relaxed into the overwhelming feeling of home.

The last thing he remembered was the soft kiss she dropped against the crown of his head. The room was quiet as the angel held the devil and they both fell asleep.


	4. Absence

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

**Long Pass: Absence**

_Makes the heart grow fonder._

It was Suzuna's idea.

Deimon High and Saikyodai University happened to run on the same schedules, so they both ended their spring semesters at the same time. There was a week gap between the end of classes and summer training, so the cheerleader had suggested that they take the time to go on a trip. A trip with just the girls, since god knows they got enough testosterone the other days of the year.

Mamori was looking forward to it, since she couldn't remember when she did something for fun that wasn't related to American Football somehow. Apparently the rest of the girls they knew agreed, because in short order their trip had expanded to include Sara, Ako, Maria, Juri, Wakana and even Megumi. Nevertheless, she prepared a folder with her itinerary, the hot spring hotel address, cell phone numbers in case of emergency, and her first brainstorming for summer training for Hiruma several days before the trip itself.

She had expected him to argue—as smart as he was, Hiruma could be extremely narrowly focused, usually on football, football, guns, threats, and _football—_and prepared several arguments. But she had hardly gotten through the first three when he waved a bored hand and told her to just _go _and don't do anything fucking obscene or drown in the hot spring because if anyone gave her mouth to mouth, it was going to be _him, _dammit, and not some pimply, hormonal inn employee.

Mamori had thought it a little odd, but wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. That is until the day of the trip and she saw Maria running up. Hakushu's former manager's poise was a little shaken—she was out of breath and flushed from the sprint. And maybe not just from the sprint…

"Sorry," said Maria. "Marco wouldn't let me go and I ended up having to text Gaou and ask him to break something as a distraction…"

She and Marco had made it official after that memorable Fall Tournament game. All the other girls laughed and Suzuna nudged Mamori with a wink. "Did You-nii give you any trouble?"

"Not really," said Mamori. She'd stopped by the Saikyodai field earlier that morning to make sure that he had everything he needed before she left, but he continued practicing his throws and told her to stop worrying.

But…now that she thought about it…Hiruma was an expert at pretending things weren't wrong. It was useful when it came to the game, but not so much when it came to the personal. Mamori was better than most anyone else at seeing through that, but even she couldn't do it 100%.

She gave herself a little shake and went to help load the group's luggage into the car. It was only a weekend—hardly any time at all. Hiruma would be fine. She was probably just projecting because she missed _him _already.

* * *

Hiruma was a loner.

At least he thought so. While he could intellectually understand the concept of loneliness, he didn't understand it emotionally. People could be pretty annoying. Hiruma _liked _being alone. After all, he had started living on his own in middle school and before that was out of the house enough that he might as well have been.

Even after meeting up with Kurita, and then Musashi, he still sometimes preferred to be alone. Company had its uses, but some things could only be done when he was by himself.

So it was, honestly, _really fucking stupid _that his heart stuttered and his mind went blank when Mamori told him that she was going away on a hot springs trip with the girls. It was only for a weekend, she would be available by cell if he needed her, but Hiruma couldn't get past the _away. _She was going _away. _As in, not here. As in not here where he could see her.

But she looked excited and happy about it, and it was really idiotic that even the smallest bit of him was freaking out over this. She was looking at him oddly, so he pasted a grin on his face, cracked wise some remark that she better not end up in some Girls Gone Wild video or drown in the tub, and snickered at the neat little folder she gave him with her itinerary, the address of the _onsen _and contact numbers in case of emergencies.

Not that Hiruma had a whole lot of experience with this—Mamori was his first and would be his last girlfriend if he had anything to say about it—but didn't guys usually see the absence of their significant other as a _good _thing? A chance to curse and explode with the uncouth manliness they held in check the rest of the time? Except he cursed and exploded all the time when she was around, having never seen the point in stopping when they first met and so she had gotten used to it and probably expected it by now.

What the hell. It was only going to be three days. They had seen each other at least once every day for the past year, and even more since they had officially gotten together that spring, but Hiruma had spent _17 years _prior to that without Anezaki Mamori in his life. It was just a fucking weekend. He could hold out. It was stupid to feel otherwise.

* * *

"Mamo-nee, is there something wrong?"

"Eh?" Mamori jumped, caught by surprise. She hurriedly waved a dismissive hand at Suzuna's worried face. "N-nothing, I'm fine. Just, er, thinking."

That was a mistake. She'd thought that the teasing would have stopped when she and Hiruma had finally gotten together, but apparently not. Suzuna grinned. "Aww…you're missing You-nii, aren't you?"

"Suzuna, it's only been a day," Mamori protested. "How could I be missing him already?"

But she did, with a sharpness that it surprised her. She had spent the first few hours of the trip feeling weird before pinpointing the reason as she didn't have any explosions to guard against. And then the weather turned the sky a brilliant blue, the same color as his eyes, and they passed a field of yellow wildflowers, the same color as his hair. When they arrived at the inn, she was shocked by the novelty of being greeted calmly at the door and checked in officially at the front desk, instead of by trembling owners in a cold sweat over a black Threat Book and being hustled to their off-the-book rooms as fast as possible. Their rooms were neat, tidy things, not a bullet or a shotgun in sight. There was no one making wise cracks about the old fashioned _yukata _and _geta _the inn provided for its guests, and no one complaining that the warmer under their food was too weak and trying to boost it with a grenade.

You would have thought that the absence of the usual outlandish hijinks that accompanied Hiruma Yoichi everywhere would have been relaxing. Instead, Mamori found herself looking for him around every corner, doorway or hallway.

Juri stretched on the other side of the pool. "Honestly, I think that having a Girls' Weekend was a _great _idea, Suzuna. If I had to hear that idiot Koutaro declare one more thing was smart, or Akaba say one more thing did or did not have great music sense, I would have stuffed that comb and that guitar down their throats!"

Everyone laughed, but Maria patted Mamori on the shoulder. "It's ok," she said quietly. "I miss Marco a little too."

"You-nii and Mamo-nee are just in the honeymooning phase," Suzuna said sagely. "They've only been official for a few months after _so long _so—hey!"

Mamori splashed her. "Oh, like you aren't going to miss Sena when he goes to America starting this fall."

Suzuna sputtered. "That's different."

Mamori lifted an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Well, I mean…he still hasn't said anything. And now he'd going to be going away for so long and…what if he forgets me? Or meets some other girl—"

Mamori felt guilty and hugged the other girl briefly. "Oh, don't worry about it. I've know him practically all his life and I've never seen him like a girl more than you. Just be patient."

"Yeah," said Megumi, leaning back against the rocks. "Send that boy a picture of you every day so he'd see what he's missing and what he ought to be if he ain't."

Suzuna brightened. "Oh, definitely. And don't worry Mamo-nee. I'm sure You-nii's missing you too—he probably left you hundreds of messages asking when you will be back by now."

There wasn't a single one. Mamori tried not to feel disappointed.

* * *

He thought that he was going to climb the walls.

Three days. _Three fucking days_.

What the hell would someone need all that time for? How is a hot spring any different than a regular bath? Hell, he probably had enough material on Saikyodai's dean that he could have built her a whole fucking spring _here. _What did she have to go away for?

Time seemed to drag by so damn slow that Hiruma was seriously considering blowing up all the clocks. He'd given the team the week off as a break between the end of the spring semester and the start of their summer training, so he didn't have practices to distract him. Mamori's thoughts on their summer training plan worked for a little while, but then he spent a ridiculously amount of time staring at the way she wrote her _hiragana _and _kanji. _Then he'd tried to sink himself into planning for the fall tournament, but couldn't concentrate. Somehow he'd gotten himself into the habit of running his thoughts by Mamori as a sounding board and it felt too weird not to have her now. He'd used Musashi in the past, but Musashi played for the opposing team now, so that would have been just dumb.

So he watched all the tapes from the spring games. First in chronological order. Then by player role. Then by school. Then he alphabetized them. His trick play cards were reorganized. He repainted his player figurines. Then he cleaned and oiled all his guns. Then he even fucking cleaned the offices and he locker rooms because _she _always did on the weekends.

And still, always still, the absence of his girlfriend ate at him like a rotten tooth. His world felt _wrong _somehow, like there was a giant hole in it.

Hiruma thought about calling her, but held onto the shreds of his pride by the skin of his teeth. Really, what would he have said? "I miss you so fucking much I feel like I'm going insane and am seriously contemplating breaking into your place, even though you yelled at me last time, just so I can lie in your bed and hug your pillow"? Because sure, that didn't seem fucking creepy _at all. _

Fuck, was love finally making him dumb? She certainly hadn't displayed this much fucking _separation anxiety _when she had mentioned the trip to him. She definitely hadn't asked for his approval to go on the trip, and nor should she have-Hiruma despised the kind of person who wanted to completely control their loved ones (it was one of his very few lines) and one of the best things about their relationship was both parties willingness to let the other be their own person.

But…three days. It might as well have been three thousand years.

* * *

Mamori returned late Sunday. She had originally planned to return Monday instead, but she made up some excuse to leave earlier. She briefly debated visiting Hiruma on her return, but it was late enough even he probably wasn't up. So she dragged herself home and collapsed in her bed. Besides, he hadn't called or texted her once the whole time, so he was probably fine. She did wake up early though (_to see him)_, so she could fully put her things away (_and then see him)_ before heading to American Football offices (_to see him)_

She had brought a broom and a mop, anticipating having to clean the place after a weekend away, but to her surprise it was spotless. Even the front office was spic and span, the game videos neatly alphabetized, Hiruma's binder of plays rebound, and all the little bullets and player figures and pens all tidied away. She frowned. As manager, cleaning was one of the few standard activities she still did for the team—since she had been gone, who…?

A thud from behind her made her jump, and whirl around to see Hiruma in the doorway.

"Yoichi!" she said, leaning back against the table and patting her heart. "You scared me."

He was staring at her with a dumbfounded expression. "The hell? I thought you weren't getting in until this afternoon."

"I switched my ticket so I could come back earlier. What are you doing here so early?"

"Because I—it—oh, fuck it."

Suddenly Mamori found herself pulled forward into a hard embrace, Hiruma's arms tight around her like he was afraid she was going to disappear if he let go. He'd caught her by surprise, but after a moment she smiled and returned the hug.

"Did you miss me?" she asked teasingly.

His face was buried in her hair, and made a muffled sound. Allowing for embarrassment, and irritation at being embarrassed, and irritation for having something to be irritated about being embarrassed about, it might have been, "Yes."

She felt her heart ease. Ok, so she hadn't been the only one doing the missing. For a few seconds she relaxed into his hold, breathing in the wonderful smell of him, all gun oil and football leather. Then she looked over his shoulder at the room again. "Who cleaned? I was going to do it when I got back but…"

Again a muffled sound, even more embarrassed and irritated than the first, "Me."

"You?" She found his face and stared at it incredulously. "You? Yoichi, I know perfectly well what you consider a tidy room. This is not it."

He glared at her mulishly. "You always clean on Saturdays. But you weren't here and I had to do fucking _something. _It was either clean the damn place or blow it up."

She laughed and kissed her violent, foul-mouthed, blunt, sweet, wonderful boyfriend, who'd missed her so much that he picked up a mop and soap. _Oh, Yoichi. _ "I'm always going to come back, Yoichi."

He kissed her back. "You'd damn well better."


	5. Food Fight

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

Author's Note: I love HiruMamo, but I do feel bad for Monta. Not sure where the idea for this pairing came from, but she seems to have more of a brother-sister relationship with the rest of _her _team so...

**Long Pass: Food Fight**

_Give a monkey a banana._

After Enma thoroughly trounced the Cupids, everyone on the Enma, Oujou, Saikyodai and Takekura teams converged on a buffet restaurant to celebrate Enma's victory and Sena's homecoming. They had to take the train to find a restaurant that hadn't yet known to blacklist Japan's American Football players. The restaurant owners, though apprehensive about the size of the crowd, was confident that the large bill would be worth it.

They regretted this most profoundly later.

No one was sure who threw the first pie. Ootawara was a favorite, purely because it seemed like something he would do. But in any case, within moments the buffet was turned into a gastronomical warzone: Musashi and Kotarou were kicking cabbages at each other, Kurita and Gaou had crushed several food carts in their linemen's battle, Kid was quick-drawing loaves of bread to hit the dodging Riku, and Sakuraba was trying to hide behind Shin, who was spear-tackling anyone in his way.

Sena, Suzuna and Monta were also hiding, but behind an upturned table.

Sena flinched as a bowl of soup smacked into the other side and laughed nervously. "Ahahaha...what a homecoming party..."

"Hey, take a look at You-nii and Mamo-nee," Suzuna called.

The two boys peeked over the edge of the table on either side of Suzuna at the other side of the room to see that Hiruma had constructed a make-shift fort out of food carts, tables and chairs, and was laughing maniacally as he sprayed the room liberally with cupcakes out of the mini-

"Is that a _catapult?" _Sena asked incredulously. "Where did he get a _catapult _in the middle of this?"

"Scary MAX..."

"Where does You-nii get anything?" Suzuna returned. "But look at them! Aww, You-nii is protecting Mamo-nee too, isn't that romantic?"

Sena and Monta looked at each other. She was behind the fort too, but Mamori was currently haranguing Hiruma about trying to use the pile of creampuffs she saved as ammunition. It didn't _look _romantic.

Suzuna was going to make a comment on how the two already argued like an old married couple, but checked her shipping self at the door for once. Monta had taken the official confirmation of Hiruma and Mamori's relationship quite hard-he'd never been really interested in girls at all until he met Mamori, and you know what they say about the first cut being the deepest. He'd gotten better in the year since, but it still was a sore spot.

Sena must have realized it too, because he changed the subject. "We're really not that far from the door...I think we could make a run for it."

Suzuna stared at him. "What, across _that?"_ She waved a hand at the chaos between them and the exit. "Some of us don't have the speed of light run, Eyeshield 21. Monta and I will get _splattered._"

"Oh, well, er..." Sena looked at her. "It'll be a little slower, but I could carry you..."

"What?" Suzuna squeaked. "N-no way! I mean, not that I'm heavy since I skate all the time, but you-"

"Hey, I did do some weight training with Homer and the others in America..."

"Still, if you slow down we'd both get splattered then-"

"Nah." Monta snagged a couple of dinner plates that were lying on the floor nearby. "I'll shield you both. If I can catch without looking, should be easy to block whatever comes our way with these."

"You two are nuts!"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Well...no," Suzuna admitted.

"Ok then." Sena got the same serious look he used in the last quarter of a crucial game. Kneeling down, he slid his arms behind Suzuna's knees and upper back, taking a careful but firm grip. He nodded at her and Monta. "Ready?"

"Ready!"

Suzuna flushed. "R-ready."

* * *

"Hey, that actually worked pretty well," said Monta on the sidewalk outside some minutes later.

Sena and Suzuna just glared at him. They would have said something but Sena was out of breath from dodging all the players that came after them when they saw the trio making a break for it, and Suzuna was fuming about all the food stains on her clothes. Monta had gotten off easy, since he had slipped on a banana peel a quarter of the way across the room, leaving Sena and Suzuna defenseless. He had been able to get outside in a relatively leisurely manner since Sena and Suzuna were distracting everyone else.

"Umm...Sena?" Suzuna asked after they spend a few moments listening to the raging war still going on inside.

"Yeah?" said Sena.

"You can, um, let go of me now."

"What? Oh. Oh! S-sorry." Sena turned red and stammered apologies as he released his grip. "I'm sorry about your clothes too...I guess it was a bad idea after all..."

Suzuna waved a hand. "It's ok, they're just clothes. I can get some more. At least we are outside, right?" She smiled at him.

Sena gulped and managed a smile back. "Yeah, I guess so."

Monta looked at them both in disgust.

"Suzuna?" All three looked at a new voice. A girl with a ponytail was standing there, looking bewildered.

"Wakana?" Suzuna blinked.

_Wakana? Oh, Ojou's manager, _Monta thought. He'd never seen her up close before-she'd always been across the field or across the room. _She's...cute._

"I'm sorry I'm late," Wakana said, "I had to return the video of the game and the equipment to our clubroom first. But isn't the party inside? What are you all doing outside? And what happened to your clothes?"

Sena, Suzuna and Monta looked at each other. How to explain...

"Dahahaha!"

"Ootawara! Put your pants back on!"

"That sounds like Ootwara and Takami," Wakana said, frowning. She started to walk toward the door. The trio panicked.

Monta grabbed her wrist. "Wait! You don't want to go in there-"

"YA-HA!"

"YOICHI, NO!"

* * *

After the teams had dug themselves out of the rubble, they were treated to a sight rarer than a day where Ootawara stayed panted-Hiruma Yoichi getting a severe dressing down. Admittedly, the one doing the dressing down was Anezaki Mamori, so she had a rather large advantage, but it still was entertaining. But then she rounded on the rest of them, and suddenly Takekura Construction was doing some pro bono repair work, with the rest of the players drafted as free labor.

"Thank you," Wakana told Monta. "That was very brave."

"Eh? Oh. Heh." He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "No problem. Ow!"

When Hiruma's grenade went off and collapsed the restaurant roof, Monta had instinctively put himself between Wakana and the flying debris. A chunk had hit him in the back of the head.

Wakana's eyes filled with concern. "Oh no, are you ok?"

Feeling like he had to be macho after she called him brave, Monta was about to shrug it off but then Wakana was digging around in her purse for her bruise ointment. Monta remarked how you could really tell she was a sports manager if she carried _that _around with her all the time, causing a very pretty blush.

She really was very cute... Mamori would always be his first love, but for the first time in a year Monta began to cautiously think about something else. It was small, but it was a start.


	6. Beautiful

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

**Long Pass: Beautiful**

_Mamori has a No Good, Very Bad, Absolutely Horrible Day. Hiruma cheers her up. _

Hiruma was changing in the locker rooms when Mamori burst in.

He got a brief glimpse of muddy clothes and purple hair before she blew past him without looking and headed directly for the showers. A second later, there was a shout of "Damn it!" followed by an explosion of even more swear words.

Hiruma raised an eyebrow-all the years he'd known her, he had never heard her say anything approximating a curse. Now it seemed like she was making up for lost time. Jerking his jersey down, Hiruma walked over to the bathroom and poked his spiky head in.

The Saikyodai manager was sitting on the floor, glaring up at the shower head that was spraying her liberally with cold water. Apparently, she had grabbed the wrong tap. Charging up, she turned off the cold water with a vicious yank, and then wrenched the warm water on. Still fully clothed, she started scrubbing vigorously at her hair.

Hiruma watched this odd sight for a moment before asking, "Mamori, what the _hell _are you doing?"

She let out a yelp of surprise and whirled around, almost slipping on the wet tile. "Yoichi! Don't scare me like that!"

"I've been right here the whole time, idiot." He scanned her from head to toe. "What the fuck happened to you?"

Mamori was completely soaked from head to toe. She had to have started that way, as she was far wetter than the shower would have gotten her in the brief time she was in it. In addition, her whole right side was splashed with copious amounts of brown mud. Her skin was pale with cold, and her blue-green eyes blazed in contrast with her hair, which was now a vivid, almost electric purple.

He grinned, appreciating the interesting way her wet T-shirt clung to her body. "Are you trying to set a new fashion trend?"

He meant it teasingly, but to his horror the glare faded as her expression collapsed into tears and she stumbled forward to bury her face into his chest. He held her awkwardly-he wasn't the comforting type, damn it-but when she showed no signs of stopping anytime soon the vague thought that he should get her out of the showers surfaced. Steering her toward the locker rooms, he sat her down on the bench and rummaged around for some towels. He dropped one around her shoulders and used another one to start rubbing at her hair. Meanwhile, she started babbling the whole story out.

First, Mamori had overslept that morning. She had been out late last night with Suzuna and the other girls and forgot to set her alarm when she got back. Jumping out of bed, she ran into the bathroom only to stifle a shriek at the sight of her head, which was now the already mentioned purple. Suzuna and the others had somehow convinced her (several drinks had been involved) to dye her hair for the night. However, they had assured her that the color was only temporary and should wash right out. Only, as she found in the shower, it _didn't _and stayed stubbornly permanent. But she was late for class, so she desperately jammed it under a cap and ran out the door.

Unfortunately, because she was late, in her first class the teacher decided to hit them all with a pop quiz. This did not endear her to her classmates, and she could feel the sting of their glares at her back. This, in addition to her still wet hair and slight hangover, made it impossible to concentrate on the quiz and she scrawled random answers down. At least she had remembered her purse for lunch-but she had forgotten her umbrella, and of course today was the day that the heavens decided to open up. And none of her classes were in the same building.

At the end of the day, she started to head back to her place to dry off and get a change of clothes, when a couple of kids rushed by and stole her hat. She ran after them, but she was on foot and they were on bikes; it wasn't hard to lose her, but she still ended up miles out of her way. By then, it was too late to make it back to her place and still be on time for practice. To add insult to injury, every single car on the way to Saikyodai made it their personal mission to splash her.

And now she was here, and completely soaked, with _purple hair, _and absolutely covered in mud. It had been a terrible day, and she looked like a drowned rat, absolutely _hideous _and-

At this point, Hiruma interrupted. "Don't be stupid," he said flatly. "You're beautiful."

"What?" She stared at him. "What are you talking about? Look at me, I'm-"

He dropped the towel and kissed her. By the time he was done, color was coming back into her cheeks. "_You_ are _beautiful,_" he repeated, as if she was slow. "I don't give a shit if you are covered in mud or cheese or green fucking goo."

"But my hair-"

He kissed her again and cackled. "Kekekeke! The purple's interesting, but maybe you should bleach it next time. Or get a mohawk. But whatever. I don't care. It's not possible for you to be hideous."

There was nothing flattering or fawning in his tone indicating that he was just trying to make her feel better. He said it like it was a fact of life. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and, to Hiruma Yoichi, Anezaki Mamori would always, always be beautiful. Always.

Mamori smiled. And people said that her boyfriend couldn't be romantic. "Thank you."

"Though I wouldn't mind if you stayed in that wet T-shirt."

Mamori looked down and blushed. "Yoichi, its white! You can see through it!" She hurriedly wrapped the towel around her chest.

"KEKEKEKE! That's the point!"

But he relented and tossed her his spare jersey.

* * *

The purple did eventually wash out, though it took about a month. Mamori was relieved to be back to her natural color, although it was amusing to see other people's reactions to it. After the first day, she gave up on the hats and just dressed to match her hair. The American Football players had especially contorted expressions as they struggled over whether to ask her about it. Purple hair was so out of the norm for their pretty but normally conservatively dressed manager that some of them even wondered if her hair had spontaneously changed color and she hadn't noticed yet. Either that, or Hiruma was rubbing off on her.

She did feel better when Suzuna sent her a picture to show that she was going through the same thing, although Suzuna had chosen hot pink instead of purple. Then the two boys who had stolen her hat showed up and bowed down so low that she was surprised they didn't embed themselves into the ground. They also started following her around, apologizing profusely and begging for something to do to make amends. They insisted that it was of their own free will, but Mamori strongly suspected that Hiruma had something to do with it (their expressions of extreme terror whenever she mentioned his name was a big clue). Eventually they spent a month's worth of practices cleaning the locker rooms and showers, maintaining the field and running every last little errand for the team.

She really did have the best boyfriend.


	7. Noises

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

**Long Pass: Noises**

_She's got a dirty mind…_

American Football wouldn't have been Karin Koizumi's choice for the subject of her first real manga series, but the editor insisted. Sports Manga was really popular just then, and no one had done one on American Football.

But Karin hadn't played the game since high school, Taka and Yamato having finally let her go focus on her music and art after their graduation from Teikoku, and the absence showed. She found herself forgetting the precise way plays ran and bodies moved on the field, making her figures appear stiff. Her editor had suggested that some real-life observation was in order. Mamori had been only too happy to let her observe the Saikyodai practice when she asked.

If she had taken a little extra time that morning to comb her hair and apply her lip gloss, it was only because she wanted to make a good impression. She was intruding in their practice after all, and she knew how unwanted visitors could throw everything off from her days at Teikoku. It was most certainly _not _because this was the first time she would see Taka and Yamato in a while. She wondered if they still remembered her…

Karin arrived a little early, the site of the field and scoreboard causing a little bit of nostalgia to rise in her chest. The smell of football leather and uniforms from the locker rooms made it rise a little more as she peeked inside club offices.

"Mamori?" she called hesitantly. Maybe she had arrived a little too early…she didn't see anyone around. "Mamori?"

"Who's there?" Mamori's voiced wafted out from the back.

"Mamori, it's Karin?"

"Karin? Oh, Karin!" Mamori's voice sounded a little odd.

"I'm sorry if I'm a little early—"

"No, that's fine. The rest of the team isn't here yet, but go ahead and come in."

"Okay…" Karin edged though the open doorway to the locker rooms. Even farther back was the closet where the team kept its excess equipment. Mamori's head poked out.

"Karin! How are you?" Mamori asked, smiling.

"Are you busy?" Karin asked nervously. "I can come back later…"

Mamori's face was flushed, and the collar of her tee-shirt slightly askew. But she shook her head. "No, its fine, I just have to—"

Suddenly a long-fingered bony hand appeared out of nowhere and yanked Mamori back in.

"Ah!"

"Mamori?" Karin said, panicked.

"Yoichi, what are you—Karin, I'm fine, it's just—"

"What the hell are you doing?" Karin's eyes widened as a male voice growled from behind the door. "We're not done in here, damn it!"

"It's Karin, Yoichi," Mamori's voice said patiently. "I told you she was coming to visit—"

_Yoichi? Who was Yoichi? _The name sounded vaguely familiar but Karin couldn't place it.

"What the fucking braid girl? Tell her to go away and come back later."

"Don't be silly, we're almost done here, aren't we?"

Whoever Yoichi was grumbled but appeared to subside. But then Karin jumped back in surprise as the closet door suddenly shook slightly as if something hit it.

"Mamori?!"

"I'm—ah!—fine, Karin!" Mamori's voice sounded strained and out of breath.

"Damn it, pay attention to me, will you?" snapped Yoichi. There was another shift inside and the something bumped the door again.

"I _am, _but Karin is just outside and we can't just—" Mamori gasped. "Wait, I'm not ready!"

"You can't just leave me fucking hanging like this—"

"I'm not, just give me a second. Try this angle—"

Another bump, and a masculine grunt from inside.

"Shit," Yoichi said, now equally breathless.

"Sorry, did I—"

"No, it's fine." The last word ended on a high hitch of breath. "Ok, I'm going to try pushing—"

"Wait, I can't—no, you can't pull it out yet—"

"Fucking—"

The closet door bumped again. And again. And again. And then several times again, accompanied by some very odd noises. Karin's eyes widened and her cheeks flamed as a thought occurred to her. _Don't tell me…_

She slapped her hands to hot cheeks and spun around. Well true, they were adults now, but Mamori couldn't be…here? Now? Karin had heard that Mamori had gotten a boyfriend shortly before they started college last year, but Karin didn't pay much attention to rumors. Her head was always in a music sheet or a studio. Was that who this Yoichi was? But still, it seemed beyond the pale that the sweet, gentle, motherly manager would be doing…doing _that, here, _while knowing that Karin was _outside—_

"AHHHHHH!"

"FUCK!"

Suddenly the grunting, gasping and bumping culminated into two sharp cries and the closet door slammed open to expel Mamori on the ground holding a—

Karin stared at it. "What?"

"Owww…" Mamori rubbed her head where it was bumped when she fell. She took a deep breath and pushed away from the tackling dummy to sit up and wipe some of the sweat from her brow. "Sorry about that," she said, smiling apologetically at Karin. "We had Musashi make an oversize tackling dummy to stand in for Kurita and Gaou, but we put in storage over the break and had to get it out for practice today."

"Che." Karin's attention was drawn to the other person, who had fallen on the other side of the dummy and was rubbing his stomach where the dummy had rammed into it and winded him. The slanted blue eyes and especially the spiky blonde hair looked very familiar. "If you didn't have to have everything put away so neat and fucking tidy all the damn time," said Hiruma _Yoichi_, "we wouldn't have spent a whole fucking hour trying to get that damn thing _out. _How the hell did we get it in there in the fucking first place?"

"You're the one who asked Musashi to make it so big in the first place, Yoichi," Mamori retorted.

Karin's mouth dropped. "That's what you were doing? You were just trying to get the tackling dummy out?"

Mamori frowned at her, a little puzzled at the other girl's surprise. "Well, yes. It actually is a little taller than the ceiling in there, and quite heavy, so it was difficult to angle it out the door and we kept hitting it…what did you think we were doing?"

Karin blushed furiously, and Hiruma cackled. "Kekekeke! Didn't figure the fucking braid girl to be such a fucking voyeur," he said wickedly. "You should have come by on Tuesday if that's what you wanted to see."

Mamori didn't get it until his sly glance slide over to her, and she blushed as hard as Karin. "Yoichi! Don't say that."

"Why not? I only am exaggerating a little bit."

"You—" Mamori sighed. "I don't know why I even try."

"Don't ask me, I don't know why you do either."

"Hmph." Mamori stood up and dusted herself off as the sounds from the other players arrived filtered in from outside. She paused, and her blue-green eyes flicked over to Karin for a second before she said to Hiruma, "It sounds like the others are here. Why don't you ask Yamato and Taka to come help carry the dummy to the field? They are more of a height than we are, and should be able to balance it better."

"Whatever," her boyfriend said, putting a piece of gum in his mouth, but he went.

"You haven't seen Yamato or Taka for a while, haven't you?" Mamori asked Karin innocently.

Karin clutched her sketchbook nervously. "Well, no—"

"Karin!" Yamato burst into the locker room with his usual cheerful expression. "We haven't seen you in a while. I was just talking about you the other day, wasn't I, Taka?"

"Hmm," said Taka non-committedly as usual, but Karin could still make out the smile in his eyes like she used to.

"Y-you did?" she stammered.

"Of course. You really were quite a good quarterback, you know. But I hear that you're a mangaka now?"

"Well, I'm just starting. They asked me to do an American Football manga, so I came here to observe—"

Yamato nodded. "Oh right, Anezaki mentioned that." He smiled at her, and his teeth were just as bright as she remembered. "Come on, I know where you can get the best view of the field—"

"Hey bastards!" Hiruma's yell came. "Get that dummy out on the damn field before I send a fucking rocket in there!"

"He still does that?" Karin asked, remember the quarterback's antics during the last game of the Christmas Bowl.

Taka shrugged. "He did actually send a grenade in once. I had to catch it and throw it outside."

Yamato patted her shoulder. "Don't worry," he said, eyes twinkling, "we'll protect you from incendiaries during practice."

Karin smiled back and relaxed. They did remember her after all. This might be more fun than she'd thought. "Thank you."


	8. Distraction

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

**Long Pass: Distraction**

_The tactic was a little too effective. _

It was notable for being one of the few times that Hiruma had had a tactic backfire on him.

Saikyodai's summer training took place on the beach. Not because Hiruma was-god forbid-_nice, _but because he remembered the Devil Bats' experience in Texas. The shifting sand and unfamiliar environment would train the team to deal with an unpredictable landscape as well as develop their sense of balance and footwork.

He split the team in half, and grinned at the other side as they realized that they would have to play against the Devil Quarterback of Saikyodai. He wasn't going to go easy on them because what was the point? Did those bastards think the other teams in the fall tournament were going to go easy on them? Hell no.

He stationed Mamori on the sidelines for that reason. Ostensibly it was to take notes and referee, but really it was because it was summer and his girlfriend was fucking gorgeous. If she came out wearing a little pair of shorts, a pretty sundress, or, even better, a swimsuit, that might distract the other side enough to give him the edge.

She gave him a disgusted look when he told her what he wanted her to do, but just sighed and went to get her notepad. And then she did him proud by coming back not just in a swimsuit, but in a _white bikini._ It was relatively modest, as those things go, not like a fucking thong or anything, but it certainly showed more of the manager than anyone of them had ever seen before, and quite a few players had to hurriedly pinch noses against a sudden stream of red.

At first he was elated, as this was exactly what he wanted, and snickered as the rest of the team struggled to keep their eyes off of her. The first quarter of their mock game went exactly as planned as passes veered off course and catches were fumbled as eyes were dragged inexorably to the red umbrella on the sideline and the beauty underneath it.

The problem was, because _their _eyes kept edging sideways, his did too. And Hiruma had _very _good eyesight. It still might not have been so bad if not for what Mamori did next.

As always, Mamori came prepared to the beach, and that meant plenty of drinks, snacks, extra towels and _sunscreen. _Sunscreen that she very conscientiously and very slowly reapplied. She always did it in the same order-first, slowly over the long, tanned legs, taking particular care on the sides near her hips; second, over the flat stomach and around her back, pushing out her chest a little to reach the middle; third, over the toned arms and fingertips; fourth, over her face and the long, graceful neck; and then finally over her shoulders, collarbone, and the exposed bit in between her breasts.

It was a wonder that the entire beach wasn't drowning in drool and to his horror, Hiruma was no exception. Ok, he didn't fucking _drool, _but suddenly _his _passes were going all over the place, and he couldn't catch for shit because he wasn't even looking at the ball.

Finally, he gave up and stalked over to the side. Mamori jumped when he thrust her cover-up at her with great vehemence.

"Yoichi, what-"

"Put that on, damn it."

She blinked up at him innocently. "Why? I thought this," she waved a hand down her body, "was the point."

He gritted his teeth. "Don' t you have anything else to wear?"

"This is the only swimsuit I brought with me." She cocked her head to the side. "You've seen it before, haven't you? I wore it last summer in Texas."

_Really? _Well, she had been kind of far off when he'd finally entered the game and ordered her to go find the rest of the team. And he hadn't really been looking at her at the time-good thing, because the sight would have probably seared into his retinas even more than it was doing now and precipitated his fall a lot sooner. "It's too distracting."

Mamori's eyes twinkled with amusement. "Are you...flustered, Yoichi?"

He recoiled. "The fuck? Of course not," he lied. "It's the rest of the team. They can't concentrate when you look like that."

She smiled at him, not fooled for a second, and stood up to take her cover-up from his hand. But her fingers lingered on his and she leaned unnecessarily close. For the briefest second, her chest brushed against his, and Hiruma's mind suddenly went blank.

"Thank you, Yoichi," she said, eyes dancing, and primly wrapped her sarong around herself until her modesty was restored. There were disappointed sounds all around, and Hiruma bit back one himself. "Now, shouldn't you go back to your game? Your team is _losing, _you know."

He stared at her, lost for words, before spitting out a curse, and recollected his ball.

Hiruma never made that mistake again. It was effective, certainly, but rather too effective and therefore consigned to the very back of his playbook. Mamori was for him and him alone.


	9. Meeting

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

Author's note: Kind of a study on the Evil One's Pa. He seemed a decent sort of chap, from what little we saw in the manga.

**Long Pass: Meeting**

"_But take care of him, will you?" he said, somewhat wistfully. "I never could figure out how, because he was always determined to do that for himself."_

Mamori didn't know Hiruma's birthday.

No, she didn't think that was odd. She knew that he was dedicated, brave, frighteningly intelligent, loyal, determined and surprisingly sweet (at times), and that's all she really _needed _to know. Sure, she didn't know his birthday, but she also didn't know his blood type, his astrological sign, his parents' names, or really anything about his family or his history before meeting Kurita. So not knowing his birthday wasn't all that strange, right?

Wait…

Okay, maybe it was a little strange. Mamori knew _him _so well, but precious little _about _him. When she had first become his manager, she had made an effort—one of her first tasks was to complete a full profile of all the players on their team so they could track their stats and identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. Also, contact information in case they need to relay information quickly when they weren't in school or at practice. The file wouldn't be complete without their quarterback, right?

So Mamori had asked him.

What's your blood type? "Red."

What's your phone number? "Take your pick."

What's your home address? "None of your damn business."

When's your birthday? "None of your _fucking _business."

Who's your emergency contact? "Kekeke! No one. I _create _emergencies, I don't need saving from one."

Who's your next of kin? "Manager, what the fuck? When I told you to create these, I didn't mean you need one for _me. _Go sweep something up, why don't you?"

She nearly threw the clipboard at his head. She _did _stomp out.

By the time that they got together, Mamori had gotten used to Hiruma's Wall of Impenetrability around anything personal to him. She had started chipping away at it a little—he finally settled on one place and gave her the key and the address, for example, and let slip enough tidbits that she figured out that he was an only child, and did not think very fondly of either of his parents—but she was afraid of pushing too hard.

She tried not to ask, and succeeded for the most part, but still had to wonder. As their relationship got serious, she thought about it more and more often. What was his childhood like? How did he grow up? What were his parents like? And, most importantly, would they like her?

* * *

It was a hot day in the middle of summer. Anticipating this, Mamori had stopped by the store on the way to practice to pick up some extra water bottles and snacks. However, even she hadn't counted on the intensely grueling heat of Tokyo summers—the air shimmered over the sidewalks and radiated up from the concrete. The store wasn't far from the field, but it soon became very clear that Mamori would need to take a quick break in the shade if she wasn't going to melt.

Luckily, there was a little park on the way, and Mamori quickly walked over to a bench placed under the shade of a large tree. It still felt like a furnace, but at least the sun wasn't baking her skin. She plopped down with a sigh and fanned her face with her hand. And then jumped.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know that this bench was taken—"

The man on the other end smiled and waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. Please, sit."

"Thank you." She resumed her place.

"Hot, isn't it?"

"Yes, very." Mamori felt a stab of pity for the man. He looked to be in his forties, but dressed in the ubiquitous "Salaryman" suit of slacks, white button down, tie, socks and loafers. At least the button-down was a short sleeve, but the rest of his suit was hot enough that sweat stuck his close-cropped dark hair into spikes. "Wouldn't you be cooler inside? With the A/C—"

"It broke. Believe it or not, but it is actually a little cooler out here." He had a nice, average looking face to match with the ordinary dark brown hair—except for his eyes. They were an unusually bright blue. "You are the Saikyodai American Football team's manager, aren't you?"

Mamori blinked. "How did you know?"

"Well, I would put your age in your late teens to early twenties, which makes you college age. I suppose you could be a drop out or cutting class on a weekday, but based on the neatness of your clothes, you don't seem the type. You are obviously returning from the store, so must not be going far, and Saikyodai is the only university within 10 blocks. Speaking of the store, your bags appear to be full of water, sports drinks and snacks in a combination most suitable for a heavy sports team like American Football. I had an 85% chance of guessing right." He smiled again.

Mamori was impressed and said so.

"Numbers are probably the only thing I'm good at. I currently work in risk assessment for the small insurance agency over there." He waved at one of the buildings across the street. "And actually I admit that I also recognized you from your picture in last month's American Football Monthly."

Mamori laughed. "I forgot about that!" The girl journalist had continued following in her father's footsteps with more "human interest" stories. Last month she had done a brief feature on the "Lady Managers" of the college football teams. "So, you're interested in American Football?"

"Well, there's a…certain player that I follow."

A breeze went by and they both fell silent for a moment to enjoy the short cooling the air's movement provided. After a moment, Mamori dug into her bags and offered him a lemon pop.

"I couldn't—"

"I got them to share with Yoichi before practice, but in this heat they'll melt before I make it to the field," she explained. "You'll help it at least not go to waste."

He hesitated, but took the pop with a surprised thank you. They ate them together on the bench, passing the time with idle chitchat. Mamori told him about the players on the football team, how she was studying early childhood education when not at practice, and why she chose to Saikyodai. He told her how he'd done a lot of traveling when younger but in recent years had to find a more steady job, only got really into American Football a couple years ago, and used to be an avid chess player.

Oh, and he was divorced. "Yes, there used to be a ring there."

Mamori flushed, mortified. "I'm sorry, but your fingers of your other hand kept rubbing over your ring finger—"

"Old habit." He smiled again, but it was a quick thing, as if it pained him. "It's been years, but can't seem to shake it."

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"Don't be. It wasn't your fault. I just…wasn't the man she married, that's all." He sighed. "I wasn't the father our son was looking for either, but I did my best. He liked the American Football though—I really got into the sport because of him."

Just then the university clock struck the hour, causing them both to jump. Mamori looked at her watch and immediately stood up. "Oh, I'm going to be late—I'm sorry, but I better get going."

"Sure, of course."

"But it was very nice meeting you," she said with a bow.

"It was nice meeting you as well," he returned, having stood up as she was straightening. They walked together back to the road, and he waved her off as the light to cross came on.

But as she did, she realized—_I never got his name—_

"But take care of him, will you?" he said, somewhat wistfully. "I never could figure out how, because he was always determined to do that for himself. But you make Yoichi smile, really smile, and that's all a father needs."

Hiruma Yuya gave his son's girlfriend a light push forward before she missed the light, and took off down the street as she was stalled in the crossing crowd. Anezaki Mamori was a good girl—Yoichi had better taste in women than his father did, at least.


	10. Declaration

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

Author's Note: Points to whoever gets the reference when Mamori makes Banba...let out a painful note.

**Long Pass: Declaration**

"_Let's get one thing straight, Hiruma Yoichi," she said, stabbing him in the chest with her finger._

Hiruma had gotten a little too pyrotechnic-happy. But Mamori, swept up in the excitement (and perhaps too inured to the excess use of explosives by then), hadn't argued against it as much as she should have, so it was probably as much her fault as his.

* * *

Every fall, the Tokyo colleges had festivals. Naturally they competed against each other for the one with the most variety, and highest attendance. The American Football teams in particular tried to outdo each other in their haunted houses, but Enma, Ojou, Saikyodai and Takekura (which wasn't even a college) kicked things up a notch.

The winner's team got taken to dinner on the other colleges' dime, and, with eaters like Kurita and Gaou in the mix, the prize was worth a fair chunk of change. Saikyodai had narrowly lost to Enma the previous year, which did not sit well with hypercompetitive Hiruma-who knew that Kurita, as cuddly as a giant chestnut-headed teddy bear, had a surprisingly sinister streak when it came to designing haunted houses? The fucking fattie had even the gall to tearfully cite Hiruma's terrifying influence as the key inspiration when awarded the trophy.

Hiruma, being Hiruma, assumed that the previous year's house didn't have bullets and bombs in it. Mamori prevented him from going _too _overboard-nixing the exploding floor and roof _in the same room_-but he made up for it with extra fireworks. The Saikyodai student body was in permanent shuddering status from the quarterback's sinister cackling during the week they spent building the complex on the football field.

All the efforts seemed to pay off. By the last day of the festival, Saikyodai's attendance numbers were the clear leader as word of mouth spread about the terrifying contents of the haunted house. The FX were top notch (rumor was that Hiruma had blackmailed a couple of Hollywood crews to help) and given an extra chilling psychological fillip with an addition of the FEAR ROOM, which supposedly was tailored to attack each person's worst fears (perhaps not so supposedly, given Hiruma's Threat Book).

Except, in the back where no one had noticed given the rest of the props in front of it, one of the pyrotechnic installations began sparking erratically. As the night wore on, it got worse and worse until the last couple of hours a particularly high arcing spark hit the wall...and the very flammable spray painted props.

It still took some time for people to notice, given that it was already quite hot inside and the aforementioned _intentional _fireworks, but after they did it wasn't long before people realized that the "Fires of Hell" weren't supposed to melt all the devils too, and the roof wasn't supposed to flame up like that. Soon people were streaming outside, coughing in the smoke. Luckily, since it was towards the end of the night on the last day, there wasn't too many people inside anyway. Mamori came up with the right numbers when she counted the customers against the sign-in sheet at the entrance. Then she started on the players working that night. Except...

"Where's Yoichi?"

Ikkyu, dressed like an evil Buddhist monk, looked at Banba, dressed as a troll. "Wasn't he behind you?"

The lineman shook his head. "No..."

Contrary to the flames at her back, Mamori felt an icy claw close over her heart.

"I saw him working in the Fifth Ring room before the fire started," Yamato offered. He was dressed like zombie. "Taka, you were in the Sixth Ring. Did you see him on your way out?"

Taka, a vampire, shook his head after a moment. Mamori spun around to face the building.

Banba grabbed her arm. "I'm sure he's fine, he's probably lost in the crowd somewhere-"

"Have you _ever _known Yoichi to be just lost in the crowd?" Mamori demanded. Her heart was pounding in her ears. He was in there, he was lost, he was unconscious, he was in danger, he was burning, he was-

"Calm down! You can't run in there-just count people again-"

"I counted everyone twice!" Mamori said, struggling, but Banba's grip was formidable.

"You can't run in there! Wait until the fire crews get here-"

"It'll be too late by then!" Mamori could already hear the sirens in the distance, but that was just it. They were in the distance. Unable to pull free, in quick succession the dainty football manager sank a fist into his solar plexus, slammed her foot into his instep, landed a punch on his nose and kneed him in the groin. As soon as Banba let go of her to collapse in a very painful ball, she ran into the burning building.

* * *

Well...shit.

Hiruma looked around. He always figured that he might burn in hell one day-he just didn't figure that day to be today.

Hiruma had been in one of the middle rooms of the maze-like haunted house, and so had been trapped between the people from the back racing out and the people in front still blithely going forward. After it became clear what was going on, a stampede ensued. Someone stomped on his foot and knocked him backward. By the time he clawed his way out of the crumpled display to rain bullets on the asshole, everyone had gone and the topography of the interior had changed so much that he was no longer sure he knew which way was out.

Ok, fine. He wasn't going to panic. Hiruma Yoichi did not fucking _panic. _He had dealt with worse shit before, after all. He couldn't think of any right now, but that did not mean that he hadn't.

Reasoning that if he knocked through enough walls, eventually he would get outside (they were only made out of cheap presswood and cardboard anyway), he started slamming his trusty rifle butt into things. He got scorched a couple of times but the fire actually helped weaken the walls so this wasn't a half-bad plan. The only problem was the smoke was making him cough and his eyes water, and the heat was causing his gun to slip from his sweaty grip. After the second wall, he had to lean against his gun, hacking and wheezing as the world spun, and trying not to vomit.

Dammit. He pulled up his shirt to cover his nose and mouth, but it didn't really help. That's when he had the terribly ironic thought that the Devil was going to die burning. Fitting, though he'd rather not die at all. Mamori was going to be so mad...

"Yoichi!"

Great, now he was hearing things. He coughed again.

"Yoichi! Where are you? YOICHI!"

Eyes running, Hiruma squinted through the flames. "Mamori?"

"Yoichi!" Ends of her hair crisping, his girlfriend ran toward him through a fiery hallway.

_Shit, tell me I'm fucking hallucinating. _"Mamori, what the fuck are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Yoichi, what are _you _doing here?" Mamori snapped back. "Why didn't you get out with the others?"

"_Why the fuck did you run back inside?"_

"Because you weren't outside!" She grabbed an arm and began hauling him down the hall.

The ceiling in the room behind them collapsed and the one in the room ahead seemed perilously close to it. "That doesn't make a shit's worth of sense!" he yelled at her, trying to pull his arm free. "Get out!"

"Not without you!" Mamori screamed back.

Hiruma drew breath to respond but instead succumbed to a fit of coughing so bad he thought he'd vomit one of his lungs out. The room started to waver, and Mamori caught him as he fell. "Get the fuck out," he repeated when he could speak again, and pushed her away. "I'm not-"

"Don't you dare! I refuse to-watch out!"

The ceiling lost the fight against gravity and a support beam swung solidly into Mamori's head as she pushed him out of the way.

Hiruma stared. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. Mamori?" He reached out a shaking hand to touch her. She didn't move, blood from her temple running over her eyes.

"Mamori!" he yelled, but his shaking fingers couldn't find her pulse. Hiruma promptly stopped thinking, because to think was to think _that _and he couldn't think _that _because if he did that meant his fucking stupid, brave, sweet, _idiotic _Mamori had run into a fire to save his worthless ass for nothing and he'd lost her and if he lost her that he might as well be nothing, and-

Well. Fuck this. Hiruma looked around, and then felt something round in his pocket that he had forgotten about, since he carried it with him every day. He pulled out the mini-grenade and, despite the heat, the flames and the smoke searing his lungs, grinned evilly.

The Devil may die burning, but the hell if his Angel was going to.

* * *

Mamori woke to someone screaming her name.

"Yoichi?" she said weakly, recognizing his voice even at excess decibels. She sat up and coughed, feeling gritty astroturf under her fingers, and stared at the hole in the side wall of the now barely recognizable haunted house. Wincing at the pain, she touched her temple and then stared at the blood on her fingers.

Hiruma was looking at her with wide saucer eyes. "Mamori?"

"Yoichi, what happened?" He was covered in sweat and dirt and the edges of his clothes were singed. The blue eyes were rimed with red and Mamori thought that this was probably one of the few times she could remember that his hair wasn't trying to defy gravity. "Are you okay?"

"Am I...?" His voice rose about 12 octaves in incredulity, before she was abruptly crushed to his chest as he wrapped his arms around her so tight she thought she would pop.

"Yoichi?"

"Don't you ever, _ever _do that again_,_" he whispered, and something wet slid down her neck. His entire body was shaking. "Not fucking _ever."_

"But I couldn't leave you," she whispered back.

"You could have _fucking died,_" he whispered again. Her boyfriend shook even harder, and his grip tightened, if that was at all possible.

"But I didn't. I'm fine," she told him, though she really wasn't. Her eyes burned, her throat ached, and her head pounded. "I'm _fine,_" she insisted, and pried his face away so she could see it.

"You are fucking not," he snapped, but his fingers gently touched the side of her head. Then he grabbed her shoulders and started shouting at her. "Why did you do that? What were you thinking? _Were _you thinking_? _Why would do you something so fucking stupid? You should have stayed outside! I've never met anyone so fucking stupid in my entire fucking life!"

"But you were _inside_!" she protested, wincing. The shouting wasn't doing wonders for her throbbing head. "What did you expect me to do?"

"Leave me, not run in like a fucking dumbass! You could have died, you fucking hear me? _You could have fucking died!"_

Behind him, their teammates started to reach for the quarterback to tell him to calm down. He turned on them like a whip. "Shut the fuck up!"

"Yoichi, I-" Mamori started, more than a little rattled. She'd never seen him this angry. Actually, she had never seen him angry _ever_. Hiruma didn't get angry, he got even. He'd never exploded like this.

"You!" He rounded on her again, fingers biting into her shoulders and face flushing. "You! Agh! Goddamnit!"

_Another first, _she thought vaguely. She'd never seen him at a loss for words either.

* * *

It wasn't long after that when the firemen finally arrived and the paramedics bustled both her and Yoichi off to the hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation, burns, and Mamori's head. Before they left the field, Mamori waved the rest of the team off to their own homes with promises to their worried faces that she would call them first thing in the morning with an update. Yoichi, despite managing to regain his outward calm, was like a lid on a heavily simmering pot although he contented himself with threatening the hospital staff with grievous bodily harm and heavy gunfire if they didn't treat her first. He also refused to let go of her hand when they tried to make him go to a separate room to look after _him. _

Later, when they were left alone, Hiruma kept staring at the bandage on Mamori's head like…well, she wasn't sure what it was like, but it made her feel like she had stepped on a kitten.

"I look kind of like you after you got hit by the ball by Ken-chan in high school, don't I?" she said.

He snorted, but didn't smile. "You shouldn't have come after me, Mamori."

_Okay. _Mamori scowled at him. "What, and leave you to die?"

"Well, fucking yeah—"

"Let's get one thing straight, Hiruma Yoichi," she said, stabbing him in the chest with her finger. "I'm sorry for scaring you, I'm sorry for making you worry, but I am not sorry for coming after you. I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved or ever will love anyone else, ever. I will walk through ice and snow and rain and flying knives and a hail of bullets and _yes fire _if it meant keeping you in my world. You might not like it, but that's not your decision to make. Understand?"

He stared at her, speechless for the second time that night. She poked him again.

"Understand?"

His lips suddenly curved in that trademark grin. "You love me?"

Mamori's mouth dropped open. "What? Of course I do! Why do you think I put up with you?"

"Well, you never actually said it—"

She grabbed the pillow from the bed and hit him with it. "I don't believe you!"

He cackled as he fended off the blows. "Kekekeke!"

"Besides, you never said it to me either!"

"What? Oh fuck, I haven't?" He let the pillow collide with him once before grabbing it and stealing Mamori's breath with a kiss. Afterwards he grinned into her startled face. "Guess I say it in my head so fucking often that I forgot to do it out loud."

She blew a strand of hair from her face. "Hmph."

"But seriously, don't fucking do that again because I'll have a fucking heart attack."

She rolled her eyes. "Then don't get yourself into trouble. _I _nearly had a heart attack when I realized you were still inside, you know."

"Did you really nut Banba?"

She looked embarrassed. "Well, I took that self-defense class with Suzuna last week...and I panicked."

"Kekeke!" He kissed her again. "I love you, Anezaki Mamori."

She kissed him back. "I love you, Hiruma Yoichi."


	11. Pets

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

Author's Note: Not exactly a romance, but I just thought this would be funny. For the many reasons why rabbits thump, see Understand-Your-Rabbit

**Long Pass: Pets**

_No fuzzies were harmed in the making of this fic._

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a rabbit."

"What the fuck is it doing here?"

Mamori sighed. "Yoichi, I told you about this last week. My friend Sara's roommate is moving in with her boyfriend, and he's allergic to rabbits so she can't keep Mr. Bunny. I agreed to take care of him until he could find a new home."

They were in the American Football club offices at Saikyodai and Hiruma had entered after his morning classes to find this fuzzy, hopping _thing _on the office table. His finger was still pointing at it accusingly.

"Why? Can't Sara take it? It's her damn roommate."

"But she's spending this semester overseas, remember?"

He glared at the rabbit. "We don't need more fucking _pets._ We just got rid of Butaberus," they had given him to Kurita as Enma's mascot, to the pig's everlasting relief, "and we still have Cerberus." His mouth suddenly stretched in a wide grin. "Kekeke! Or were you planning on _Mr. Bunny _being the new food source?"

Mamori smacked his arm lightly. "Don't even think about it! Look," she said, when his mouth opened to make more arguments, "I'm going to be late for class. I'll be back this afternoon for practice, and I expect to find Mr. Bunny safe and sound when I do: not exploded, not shot, and not eaten. Not missing, not in hiding, not "ran away, honestly," not _anything _but here, perfectly healthy, whole and traumatized in any way. Got it?"

Hiruma looked at her stern face and wondered if she realized how hot it was. He rolled his eyes. "Fine. The fucking hopper will be as safe as a damn virgin in a nunnery."

She beamed at him and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, Yoichi. Don't worry, Mr. Bunny won't be here long."

* * *

Hiruma spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find a loophole in his girlfriend's order. There wasn't, which made him simultaneously annoyed and proud that she knew him so well.

But the fucking hopper was just so _annoying. _

At first it was ok. Hiruma didn't have any afternoon classes that day, so settled into his usual routine of refreshing his player stats and drafting up the practice schedules for the next week. An hour passed in perfect silence except the tapping of his computer keys and he hardly even noticed the rabbit was there.

Then..._thump._

The sound came out of nowhere, and the quarterback jumped. "What?"

He looked around. There was nothing.

_Thump. _

"The fuck?" This time he stood up, gun in hand, chewing furiously on his gum. He did a slow circuit around the room, peered out the windows and opened the door, but there was nothing and no one-

_Thump thump._

"Goddamnit!" He whirled around. Where the hell was that sound coming from? He scanned the room again until his eyes fell on the table and-

The bunny's back leg spasmed as it hopped around the cage, causing a-_thump!_

"Stop that," Hiruma snapped. "It's fucking annoying."

Mr. Bunny stood up on his hind legs and twitched his nose.

"I mean it," said Hiruma, feeling vaguely ridiculous, and returned to his chair.

But however successful his intimidation tactics were on humans, they proved to be spectacularly ineffective on rabbits. Probably because he was prevented from blowing the fuzzy fucker up, so the damn thing _thumped _his way throughout the whole afternoon. Like what the hell? What the hell was all the damn _thumping _for?

Thinking that maybe the stupid rabbit was protesting its confinement in the cage (well, it's not like it could _talk_), Hiruma took it out of the cage and put it on the table. It hopped around peacefully for an hour and then resumed the damn _thump. _Maybe it was hungry-he fed it a carrot. It nibbled like its jaws were motorized and then-_thump._

By the end of the afternoon, Hiruma was at his wits' end. There was no rhyme or reason to the thumping, so he couldn't ignore it like he would a ticking clock-instead the damn animal _thumped _whenever it freaking felt like it, derailing his thought processes. He didn't get any work done.

_That's it, _he though crazily. Mamori was going to be mad, but Hiruma Yoichi was not going to let some fuzzy motherfucker get the best of him. Cackling, he found his largest gun and-

* * *

"DON'T SHOOT MR. BUNNY!"

The Saikyodai players looked at each other and then ran the rest of the way across the field.

The shouting was coming from their club offices and they reached the doorway just as their manager snatched a white rabbit from the table and held it protectively to her chest. She was glaring at their quarterback captain, who had been pointing one of his obscenely large guns at the animal.

"What did I tell you?" Mamori demanded.

Her boyfriend was looking even crazier than normal. "That _rabbit,_" he spat, "is a fucking menace. It thumps! Like," he waved his hands around, "_thumps _whenever it fucking wants!"

Mamori stared at him. "Yoichi, are you feeling ok?"

Agon was already regretting his decision to come to practice that day.

"What's going on?" Banba rumbled from the doorway.

Hiruma pointed at him. "You! You told me yesterday that you wanted a fucking pet, didn't you?"

"What?" The lineman was taken aback. "No, I didn't-"

"Or you!" Hiruma pointed at Yamato. "You need something cute and fucking fuzzy in your life, don't you?"

Yamato's face clearly said that he thought his quarterback had lost it, but was too nice to say so. "Hiruma, why don't you calm down for a second-"

"This is stupid," Agon spat. "I can't believe the team is made up of such trash." He turned to go.

Unfortunately for him, Hiruma chose this moment to snatch the rabbit from Mamori and aimed at Agon's head. When the dread-locked one spun around to slap the gun away, he was showered with confetti from the trick gun. Hiruma dropped the rabbit into his hands.

"What the hell?" Agon yelled, the bunny looking up at him with terrified bunny eyes. _Goddamn god-speed impulse._

Hiruma cackled. "Kekekeke! Congratulations, fucking dread. You are now the proud owner of a new bunny!"

"You blond trash-"

Everyone else looked aghast. "You can't give the bunny to _Agon,_" Ikkyu protested. "He'll eat it!"

Silence. Even Taka looked surprised.

"What?"

Ikkyu cringed as Agon's glare transferred to him and hastened to explain. "Because Agon is, you know, evil..."

It occurred to him that that wasn't exactly the best thing to say either, and he hid behind Banba.

Agon scowled. "Again," he snarled, "this is stupid and I can't believe you all are such trash." He flung the rabbit away and stalked off.

"MR. BUNNY!" everyone else yelled.

"CATCH MAX!" came the reply.

"Huh?"

Monta rounded the corner. "All right, who's the monster throwing bunnies around?" he demanded. The shivering bunny was cradled to his chest.

Mamori gave sigh of relief. "Oh Monta, thank goodness. Come here quickly and get the rest of Mr. Bunny's things before the poor thing expires from fright." She glared at Hiruma. "I can't believe you. I _told _you that Mr. Bunny wasn't going to be here long. If you could have been a little patient, but no-"

"The bunny is Monta's?" asked Ikkyu.

The other receiver scratched the back of his head in an embarrassed sort of way. "Well, Wakana's really. Or it will be. It's sort of a surprise because her birthday is coming up and she said she always wanted a rabbit so...Mukyaa..." He trailed off, flushing red and hurried inside the clubhouse to gather the rest of Mr. Bunny's stuff.

* * *

After this, Agon eating things because of his EVULZ became a running joke throughout the rest of their college career. At least while his back was turned.

However, Wakana was very happy with her new pet. Her new pet was even happier to be away from the crazies. And Monta was ever happier with Wakana's reaction to her gift.

Mamori, on the other hand, fumed at Hiruma until he gave her a whole box of Kariya creampuffs. Every day. For a week. When he added wearing the bunny suit from high school, she laughed and gave in. The rest of the team's chuckles were held at bay when Hiruma immediately turned around and forced them to run laps by chasing them with his M-16.

"Run, my fucking forest friends! RUN! KEKEKEKEKE!"

Just another semester at Saikyodai.


	12. Dawn

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

**Long Pass: Dawn**

_Here's for the beta couple!_

It was because of Hiruma.

It was, after all, his idea to go camping. In the mountains. In the dead of winter. Because Hiruma had decided that the reason they had lost to Enma, almost lost to Ojou, and only narrowly won against Takekura was because Saikyodai's practices that season had been too tame and they needed to do better for next season. As if his incendiary training regime _with real incendiaries _could be considered too tame.

But somehow news had gotten out about Saikyodai's supposedly secret winter training-perhaps through Musashi, who Hiruma still used as his main equipment builder-and suddenly they were joined by the players from Enma and Ojou College, as well as Takekura Construction. Hiruma had yelled and sprayed bullets everywhere—secret winter training was worth fuck all if _all their fucking rivals came to join in like a fucking slumber party-_but they all knew it was just for show. The paradoxically intense rivalry on field but equally amicable camaraderie off was a hallmark of what the American Football reporters was calling "The Platinum Generation."

So they all piled into their cars, including the Tower Jeep Hiruma loved so much, and drove off into the wilderness.

The first day or so went as normal. Hiruma and the other team captains organized ordinary insane things like making the players run up the mountain, down the mountain, and then up the mountain carrying someone else (though some shuffling was in order after Sena was randomly paired to carry Shin and Monta to carry _Gaou_); running across a frozen lake before the ice cracked; and then going back and catching their dinner in said lake...with their bare hands. Naturally the receivers from each team did the best at this last one, with Monta and Taki in particular nearly drowning themselves with outlandish "FISH CATCH MAX!" and "Gentle Spinning Natsuhiko Grab!"

After eating the roasted fish, they all collapsed into their tents. Therefore, Suzuna was slow to wake when a finger poked her just before dawn the next morning. She burrowed deeper into her pillow to ignore it, but it insisted. Eventually her eyes cracked open.

"Sena...?"

The running back smiled at her. "Good morning."

"Sena, what...?" Suzuna rolled over, rubbing at her tired eyes. "What time is it?" She looked over at the still sleeping form of Mamori, her tentmate. If Mamori was still asleep, then..."What are you doing up so early?"

"Well, Monta kept practicing his catches in his sleep and kept hitting me...but I want to show you something." He suddenly looked nervous. "I mean...if you want to see."

Suzuna frowned at him, but sat up. "Sure."

Sena waited outside while she got dressed, and handed her a thermos when she emerged. Suzuna sipped at the hot tea inside gratefully and followed him across the camp. He didn't say anything and when they stopped by the Jeep, she asked, a little exasperated, "Sena, what's the big mystery?"

"Kekeke! Yeah, what's the big fucking mystery, fucking shrimp?"

They both jumped at the sudden appearance of Hiruma nearby. The blond had been nearly invisible against the snow in his puffy winter coat, which Suzuna was sure was one of the only white things he owned.

"Hiruma! N-nothing," Sena stammered.

Their former quarterback grinned evilly at him. "Kekekeke! So, six months with those American bastards, and you still are an awful liar."

"I-I just wanted to show Suzuna something."

Hiruma lifted a sharp eyebrow at him, and then glanced up at the tower they had stopped beside. "Hmmm..." If possible, the grin got even more evil. "All right. But nothing dirty or the fucking manager will have my ass."

Sena turned a magnificent shade of red. "That's not it!"

But by then Hiruma had already started to walk away, cackling. Suzuna sighed. "You-nii hasn't changed a bit," she remarked.

"It's really nothing dirty," Sena told her frantically.

She sighed again and patted his arm. "I know." _Even if I wish it was, _she thought to herself. It had been three years since they'd met, and he still hadn't made a move. It was like waiting for You-nii and Mamo-nee to get together all over again, only it was _her _and not Mamo-nee, and it wasn't stubbornness holding them back but just Sena being too sweet and too nice to ever do anything. Suzuna thought she had done pretty much everything short of declaring herself and skating her feelings on his head-and she had only not done _that _because she was afraid that she might scare him off.

Though if something didn't happen soon, she was going to lose it. Mamori told her to be patient, but Suzuna wasn't the patient type. He knew that she liked him, right? She had been pretty clear about that. And she _thought _that he liked her too, though sometimes she wondered...

He was looking at her oddly and she found a smile for him. "What did you want to show me?"

Something at the top of the tower, apparently. She followed him up, and he helped her over the last rungs when the winds, even sharper at this elevation, bit through her mittens. But she didn't even notice the cold when she saw the view.

"Oh, _wow!_" Suzuna leaned over the railing to stare at the landscape. From this high up, they could see for miles and the trees below looked spun silver frosted in sugar that glittered and gleamed as the rising sun spread golden fingers over their tops. In the distance were the mountains, with wispy smoke dotting their slopes from the scattered cabins in the wilderness.

"Is this what you wanted me to see?" she asked, eyes bright. He nodded. "It's beautiful! Look, you can see-"

"Ah, careful!" Sena darted forward to grab her around the waist as she leaned a little too far over the guardrail and her mitten slipped.

"S-sorry," Suzuna said, laughing nervously. "My fingers were a little numb."

Sena looked at her, and then released her to grab a large blanket that was folded in the corner. His fingers brushed her cheeks as he wrapped it around her body. "Better?" he asked. "Sorry, I know it's sort of cold up here."

"No, it's ok." She rubbed her hands together. "It's just a little nippy."

To her surprise, he took her hands in his own, slipping her mittens off so he could blow on her fingers himself and warm them between his palms. Suzuna blushed furiously and Sena noticed, spots of color blooming in his own cheeks. "S-sorry! I mean, aha, I thought that's what...I mean, they looked cold so I wanted to help and-I should have brought a hot water bottle up here or something..."

"It's fine," Suzuna said, trying to get her heart in check. But then, because it was Sena, because he just looked so cute, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you for bringing me up here," she told him. "It's beautiful."

She had caught him in mid-babble and he just stared at her in surprise. Eventually he closed his mouth and gulped. "You're...you're welcome."

Then, to _her _surprise, he leaned forward and...the kiss was definitely not to her cheek. But it was as sweet and kind and gentle as he was, and Suzuna wasted no time responding quite enthusiastically. Soon, the cheerleader and the running back were wrapped together tightly enough that cold wasn't an issue anymore.

* * *

"About fucking time," Hiruma muttered on the ground.

"Let me see," said Mamori, tugging at the binoculars. He relinquished them to her, and she smiled as she looked through them. "Aww..."

Hiruma snorted as he squinted up at the now tiny figures. "They took even longer than we did," he said with some disgust.

"It's not their fault," Mamori insisted. "Sena is so shy, and then he went to America for half a year. Besides," she teased, "I would have thought that you would feel a little empathy for another guy who was afraid to confess his feelings."

He snorted again, but didn't say anything as he glanced up at the two figures on top of the tower and then back to her.

She blinked. "What?" Then, after a minute, "What?" again, although this time her cheeks were very flushed, hair mussed and pajama top slightly askew courtesy of a kiss that could have melted an iceberg.

He grinned at her and put another piece of gum in his mouth. "I can't have those fucking brats showing up us up, can I?" Then he slipped a pair of muffs over her ears before doing the same to himself and pulling out a truly gigantic megaphone from somewhere. Mamori just sighed as she heard Hiruma's slightly muffled version of a gentle wakeup call. She went back in her tent to get dressed as around her the players flailed out of theirs (the lucky ones did so without collapsing the tent on them, saving themselves some extra flailing).

Just another beautiful dawn.


	13. Family Plans

Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21.

Author's note: A small flashback.

**Short/Long Pass: Family Plans**

_Hiruma scowled at a set of onesies._

During the spring of their junior year of high school, after returning from the World Cup, one of Mamori's older cousins announced the happy news of her pregnancy. Hiruma had dragged Mamori out to scout the other high schools in advance of the spring tournament-they weren't allowed to participate but the rules said nothing about gathering information, and the blond would be damned before he let all his hard work go to waste-so after lunch she returned the favor and dragged Hiruma into a baby store.

He entered the place with the expression of someone walking to the gallows. Mamori chided him. "Hiruma, it's a _baby _store, not a torture chamber."

"It's fucking weird," he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and staring around him in disbelief. "They're babies. What the hell are they going to do with all this stuff? They won't even remember half of it, and puke or poop or drool on the other half. They'd be just as happy with a damn box."

Mamori sighed. "Just help me pick out a toy and a set of clothes."

Hiruma scowled at a set of onesies and plucked a three-pack from the stand at random. "Here. Can we go?"

"Hiruma, that's for boys. My cousin is having a girl."

"So? Teach the brat to ignore gendered limitations early."

Mamori pulled out a dress. "What about this? Isn't it pretty?"

Hiruma eyed the frilly pink concoction. "Shit, it looks like a cotton candy machine threw up."

"Hiruma, language," Mamori hissed as a store employee glanced at them.

"Why? It's not like any soft-headed babies are _here _for me to corrupt," he retorted.

Mamori put the dress in her shopping basket and moved on. Amidst all the softness and pastel, Hiruma looked like a spiky black stain as he followed her. But he criticized _everything_-a set of blocks were stupid, a rattle was poorly made, the cloth books were insipid, and the stuffed elephant had beady eyes. Finally Mamori gave up and glared at him.

"For someone who doesn't see the point of all this stuff," she waved at the store, "you seem to have a lot of opinions on it. You'd think it was _your _baby."

Hiruma snickered. "What, me? A baby? You've got to be kidding."

Mamori frowned at him. "Why?"

"Why?" he stared at her incredulously. "What...isn't it obvious? Look, you are fucking made to be a mom. Any kids of yours will be beautiful, well-behaved little brats, with not a hair out of place and send _themselves _to time-out. Mine...wouldn't."

The thought actually was very disturbing. Give him this soft, weak, helpless thing that was completely dependent on him? _Him_?

"Actually, I think that you would be a great father."

"Kekekeke!" Hiruma was really starting to question his manager's sanity. "Are you delusional? What makes you say that?"

"Well, look what you did with the Devil Bats."

"Yeah, like American Football and raising kids is so fucking similar."

Mamori looked thoughtful. "They're really not all that different. You taught the team how to stand up for themselves, see their own worth, handle responsibility, take the initiative, and value the importance of others. They depended on you to lead by example, and show them the right way. How's that any different from caring for a child?"

"I also _shoot _at them, and forced them to march 2000 miles in 40 days, in the middle of summer, pushing a _truck._"

Mamori shrugged. "You didn't force anybody, they had a choice as I recall. And I never said that you would be a _conventional _father, just a good one. Not everything about parenthood comes out of books. Any little Hirumas would be a handful, but they also would be very smart, resourceful, determined, and extremely loyal to anyone they cared about. Just like their father."

She smiled at him as he stared at her, amazed. "Goddamn," he said finally. "Are you serious?"

"Of course!" She sounded a little affronted. "Now," she said briskly, holding up a stuffed rabbit and a stuffed unicorn, "which one do you think would be better?"

Still numb, Hiruma poked a long finger at the unicorn. It, at least, had a spike.

* * *

After they had gotten together, people (_Suzuna) _would often tease them about when the wedding would be. To that question they either got the expected blush and fluster (Mamori) or a hail of bullets (Hiruma). When they posed the same question about _kids _however, it was very different story. By the time they started going out, the blond had warmed up considerably to the idea of children, especially children with Mamori, and teased her often about having enough to field their own American Football team.

(But no pink. Even if it was a girl. Pink was a red that just didn't try hard enough, and none of his kids were going to be fucking give-up wimps.)

Everyone else shuddered at the thought. Mamori's children would be wonderful. Hiruma's children would be terrible. Anezaki-Hiruma children would be beautiful devils, smarter than anyone else around them, hold up creampuff bakeries with tanks, and eventually wind up ruling the world with a combination of sweetness, lies, threats and gentle smiles.

It was going to be an interesting future.


End file.
